The world’s worst off shore oil disaster to date took place on a North Sea oil production platform called Piper Alpha on the 6th of July 1988. On that date an explosion and fire took the lives of 167 men out of the 229 on board at that time. The oil rig is operated by Occidental Petroleum and began production 12 years before that, drilling for oil initially and picking at 300,000 barrels per day but then focusing on its new gas recovery module from around 1980.
The conversion from oil to gas was partly responsible for the high number of casualties. As the previous safety precautions of having the most dangerous areas as far away from personnel as possible were overwritten with examples like the gas compression area being situated right next to the control room.
The chain of events on the night of the 6th of July began with maintenance work on a pressure relief valve of one of the two huge gas compressors. Communication between ships was faulty meaning that when compressor B failed later that evening, operators were unaware that compressor A should not have been activated. The resulting explosion destroyed the control room which was then abandoned. This meant that there was no one in command able to coordinate an evacuation.
Two men on protective gear and attempted to access the system manually but were never seen again. As fire spread throughout the platform, it prevented personnel from gathering at life boat stations, instead they waited for instructions that never came and the fireproof accommodation block until the accrued smoke began to filter in and escape became impossible.
Even so the fire would have burned itself out, had it not been for the two other platforms tapped in flame wall lacking the authority to seize operations even though they could see what was happening, they continued pumping oil through the Piper Alpha leading to ruptured gas lines further explosions and a devastating loss of life.
Eventually, the fire was extinguished by the renowned American firefighter, Red Adair who struggling in against 18 mile an hour winds and 25 meter waves took three weeks to control the fires pumping cement into the oils and then encapping them.
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